At Tribeca Film Festival, Directors Discuss Shooting in New York

Atmosphere at the NY Filmmaker Party during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival at City Hall restaurant on April 15 in New York. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Tribeca’s City Hall Restaurant was packed Tuesday, the eve of the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival, for the New York Filmmaker Party hosted by the festival and Company 3.

New York features heavily in the festival, starting with “Time is Illmatic,” about the Brooklyn-born rapper Nas, which kicks off the festival tonight with a screening followed by a performance. Other New York offerings include the documentary “Ballet 422,” which follows choreographer Justin Peck as he creates a new work for the New York City ballet, and “Summer of Blood,” a vampire film set in Brooklyn.

Filmmakers at Tuesday’s event included Paul Haggis, whose film “Third Person” is screening at the festival. The star-studded cast includes James Franco, Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis and Olivia Wilde, and the film is set in Rome, Paris, and New York, where Mr. Haggis said he was looking forward to showing the film.

“I like being a New York filmmaker,” he said. “I want to be shown in New York.”

Lou Howe, who directed “Gabriel,” starring Rory Culkin and opening the festival’s world narrative feature competition, described how he discovered Manhattan’s Riverside Park over the course of shooting the film in New York City and Long Island.

A sequence they had planned to shoot in Central Park had to be moved, he said, and Riverside Park was suggested. It was originally going to be a stand-in for Central Park, but Mr. Howe said the sequence was rewritten and set in Riverside Park instead. “It was amazing, I want to go back,” he said.

Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, co-directors of the documentary “Mala Mala,” about the transgender community in Puerto Rico, said they were excited to have six of their film’s subjects visiting New York for the festival, and to have a week to celebrate a film they have worked on for two-and-a-half years.

“I’m so excited for them to have a platform to express themselves,” said Mr. Sickles. “For people to say, ‘I want to talk to you, I want to find out who you are.’”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.